


So No-one Told You Life (Was Gonna Be This Way)

by goingsparebutwithprecision



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Plants, Recovery, Rocket and Groot get a flat on Terra, gratuitous Friends references, pterodactyls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 01:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9944576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingsparebutwithprecision/pseuds/goingsparebutwithprecision
Summary: Rocket and Groot get a flat on Terra. Groot watches Friends, Rocket makes friends, and the thing with the pterodactyls was not his fault.





	

It’s easier than Rocket expected, getting an apartment in New York. He asks the realtor about it, as she leads them up to the third place in the last week. They’re picky, ok, he has standards, and Groot has some pretty specific living requirements if they’re gonna make this work. The whole point of this little jaunt is that Terra has the perfect atmosphere for Groot to recover, good soil, good air, the complete d’ast ecological whatever. Rocket, now, he wouldn’t’a pegged New York for the best place for this, if he’d known a d’ast thing about it before he got here. But Quill recommended it, and Groot insisted they be somewhere busy. They like people watching, which is a weird hobby for a tree, but Rocket can’t talk. Apparently on this planet four-legged furry things aren’t in the habit of building large and complicated bombs when bored.

Anyhoo.

The realtor just shrugs. “Lotta weirdos in this city,” she says. “Not just the big guys.” Rocket gets the impression she expects him to know what she means by that, and waves a paw at her to continue as she fumbles with the keys.

“Well,” she says, “there’s that spider-kid in Queens, the one the Bugle never shuts up about. And the devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Some PI with super-strength, something-or-other Jones. Mutie kids on the streets and under ‘em, if you believe the rumours. Chick with a tail and a guy who talks to ants at Empire State. Guy in a bar was tellin’ me there’s a talking duck wandering around out there too.”

“Basically,” she finishes, opening the door and leaning back with a flourish, letting Rocket step over the threshold, Groot’s pot clutched tight in both paws, “if your money’s good, you’re good.”

Rocket walks into the main room, and Groot stretches out their leaves to the sun.

“We’ll take it,” he says, immediately.

The realtor passes him a contract, which he marks with a shaky _X_ , and tosses him the keys. Rocket barely notices.

The wall is facing southwest, the glare of a New York sunset bouncing round the nearby buildings, and made of glass. It stretches up, forms part of the ceiling too. It’s cracked, dirty, there’s tape over bits of it and what look like laser blast scorch marks. Rocket remembers Quill mentioning something about off-worlders falling outta the sky over here in recent years, traces one of the blast lines with a claw. Decent output, too showy. Inefficient. He’s built better.

The room’s dusty. Faded. Old. There’s cables poking outta gaps in the drywall, broken TV and a sagging couch against the back wall.

The fire-escape balcony stretches the length of the apartment.

It’s gonna do nicely.

 

Rocket huffs, swearing under his breath as he drags the loaded plastic up the stairs. He’s fine with the top floor, he is, it’s better for Groot, the dumb weed, and if the elevator wasn’t banjaxed again… It’s a long time since he’s played with electrics without aiming to make shit explode, but he’s pretty sure he remembers how to do it. Soon as he gets the d’ast supplies up the d’ast stairs…

He’s halfway up when feet clatter behind him. Terran feet. Damn, but they’re weird looking.

“Need a hand?”

Rocket looks up. The girl is one step aheada him, leaning casually on the handrail. Long-legged and springy-haired, brown skin and darker eyes. Younger than Quill by a fair ole while, but not sprog-size. Doesn’t look like trouble.

“’M fine,” he says. Tries not to growl. He’s got this, dammit. He’s a friggin’ guardian of the galaxy (Quill’s a moron, but it does have a ring to it). He saved a whole d’ast planet. He can get the groceries up the stairs.

The stairs ain’t really a big deal. But it’s just him and Groot out here, and he owes the stupid twig, and Quill would laugh.

Quill probably wouldn’t laugh. Or he would, but he’d help, and make some daft Terran reference and looked like a kicked Androsian when none of them got it. Gamora would probably sharpen a knife at him, then grab one of the bags while he was distracted. Drax would…Rocket’s not sure what Drax would. Maybe pick him up, bags and all. Rocket makes a note to binge on some Terran pop culture at some point. Mess with Quill a bit. Then realises that the Terran is still talking.

“It’s no trouble,” she says. “I skipped weight-training today, might as well kid myself I’ve actually gotten some exercise.”

Rocket considers her a second. He’s got enough weapons on him to drop her if she tries anything funny. And with a paw free he might even manage that.

He offers the bag nearest her, and she shoulders it cheerfully, turning to head up the stairs again.

“You’re in 12, aren’t you?” she says. “Glass walls and a killer view. It was vacant when we moved in, but Ma wanted something a bit more solid, case the aliens dropped by again.”

“Right,” Rocket says flatly. “Aliens.”

“I was in Jersey for it. Caught the last of it on the news. Crazy old world.”

“Kid, you got no idea.”

She chatters lightly as they ascend, about her job and her cat and how nice the neighbourhood is, and Rocket finds it weirdly soothing. Normally talking to civilians is an exercise in aggravating. They’re grating and whiny, and they look at him funny a lotta the time. This, this ain’t so terrible.

They reach the apartment door and stop. Rocket puts his bag down, fishes the key out of a pants pocket, and is halfway inside before –

“Hey, kid?”

She’s still there, bag swinging out in front of her.  He grabs it, kicks it over the threshold and offers a paw.

Surprise flashes across her face in a split second, then she returns the gesture. They shake, and he says “Rocket”.

“Claire,” she replies, and smiles like a sunrise.

“Thanks, Claire,” he says, and steps inside.

 

It’s six o’clock on a Tuesday evening. It’s warm outside, gearing up for a boiling hot city summer. The glass doors are open, letting the last of the breeze sweep the fug clear. Air-con’s broken, and Rocket’s got it spread out in bits on the living room floor. After the success of the elevator project, he’s taken to fixing up whatever bits of the building fall apart next. Sometimes he gets paid in cash, sometimes in favours, but it’s a living. Building’s so old it’s more patches than walls, he ain’t gonna run out any time soon.

Groot’s out on the balcony still, soaking up the last of the sun’s rays. They’re about a foot tall now, and spreading wide, thin and sneaky tendrils around the rails of the fire-escape, and tiny, light green leaves slightly furled against the onset of night.

They don’t say much, yet, and Rocket tries not to mind. Most of what Groot says is in the silences anyway, in the shape and the size and the sway of them, and they’re companionable silences, still. But the lack of those three words is a reminder in a sea of brain-slamming reminders of why they’re here. As if every day on this mud pile wasn’t reminder enough.

Rocket almost doesn’t know what he’d say, if Groot spoke. His mouth’s too small for a thank you big enough.

So when he looks up from his nest of metal and wiring, it takes him a second to realise why. To understand what that babbling, trilling sound is.

Groot is talking.

Air-con parts scatter left and right as Rocket dives for the window. _Subtle, ya idjit_ , he snarls at himself, sneaks across the remainder of the battered old floor on paws as silent as a Kartuckian whispersnake, hides behind a lump of junk from 4A and listens.

“I am Groot,” he hears, a tiny, reedy voice, and his withered little pest of a heart jumps in his chest.

“-and then the devil turns to the plant-lady and says-“

“I am Groot?” They interrupt excitedly, and there’s a giggle from somewhere above ( _above?_ ) and a high voice, a kid’s voice, says “no, silly, they don’t like each other like that. The devil says-“

But Rocket can’t take it anymore, he jumps up from his hiding place – _curiosity killed the cat_ , 5C scritch-scratches in her dry old voice, and Claire grins, says _and satisfaction brought it back, Nana, and don’t you forget it_ \- and there’s a girl hanging by her knees from the stairs down from the roof, wisps of pale orange, duck feather hair floating ‘round her upside-down face, and she says “oh hey, Mr Rocket! Don’t be mad! I was just playing on the fire-escape and-“

“Shut it, kid,” he says, not unfriendly. “I want to hear the rest of the story _._ ” He doesn’t say _why are they talking to you? Why you and not me? What did I do?_ He doesn’t want to know the answer.

The breeze picks up as she chatters away, all gappy teeth and freckles, and Rocket shivers. It feels like night, suddenly, the prison-disinfectant orange of the descending sun barely dripping through the gaps in the distant skyscrapers.

The kid’s name is Amy, and she likes rabbits and superheroes and Central Park, except she never gets to go since the ex-ba-tear-mess-tree-als came and blew up the carousel. She’s cold too, Rocket realises, after a moment of reluctant attention. Her skin’s doing that thing Quill’s does when the heating on the Milano is busted, and Rocket interrupts her excited description of Spider-Girl’s hair to ask her if she wants to get outta the cold.

She pouts, which looks even weirder upside-down than it does on a right-way-up mud-shoveller. Terrans, amirite?

“Inside is boring,” she says, “I wanna stay and talk to Groot.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Rocket says, as patient as he can manage, “it’s time for Groot to come in too.”

She looks half-convinced. Rocket sighs inwardly, and pulls his trump card. “Anyways, how often d’you get a chance to enter the lair of a real live alien?”

“Are you an alien, Mr Rocket?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Realest extraterrestrial you ever seen, kid,” he says, glancing behind him into the apartment. There’s nothing too dangerous in there at the moment, nothing that’ll blow up on contact with an inquisitive eight year old, anyway.

Kid turns right way up and trots down the fire escape. Rocket gets a paw on Groot’s pot, and Groot starts winding in from their intricate many-sprouted grip on the balcony. “I am Groot,” they trill in his ear, and Rocket sniffs, trying for stuck-up and settling for emotionally stunted. A creeper rasps around the fur on his neck, bud patting his cheek in a tree-toddler hug, tiny beady eyes fixed on his.

They get inside, and Amy follows, eyes wider still. Rocket wants to take a picture for Drax, for him to add to the cabin wall of the Milano, which is slowly filling up with the strange and ridiculous, but he doesn’t. Tries, half-heartedly, to remember how old Drax’s daughter was.

He wonders what the place looks like, to her. He’s never really given it much thought. It’s theirs, not some cheap-ass fake-Terran knock-off, and they can do what they want to it, for however long they’re here. There’s metal everywhere, heater-covers and pipes and flash-gun cases and knives and valves and shiplights stolen from the store in the Milano, the ones that look like gold-glowing pollen Groot won’t make again for a good long while, and between everything else –

Plants.

It started as a joke, kind of. Rocket brought one home from the covered market two blocks down, _a buddy for ya, buddy, when I’m not around, heh, poor substitute for my dashing good looks and rakish charm, I know, but_ – but Groot had perked up, instantly, clapped their twigs and made grabby hands at the pot, and Rocket had put it down, grinned without it reaching his eyes, and beat a hasty retreat. So hasty he barely hears them whisper, _I am Groot_ , like a secret.

Claire brought one, then another, claiming to have found them in a dumpster on her way home from work, then Rocket finds another one, on its side on the ground, soil spilling over the dusty sidewalk, and one evening he comes home to find Groot leaning precariously over the balcony rails, one long thin arm stretched dangerously downwards towards the curl of some weed in the wall two floors down. Rocket sighs, and fetches the mag-lev, floats down with a planter and some potting soil. Rocky Raccoon to the rescue, he hoots, joyous, as he leaps off the tottering platform and back onto the fire-escape, and he’s only half-faking.

The apartment feels alive, now, as everything spreads and grows and twines its way in. Rocket’s fairly sure Terran plants don’t grow like that, and he’s even surer (shut up, Quill) that Groot’s got something to do with it. Magical plant vibes, or whatever.

He wonders if they’re like kids, for Groot.

“Wow,” Amy says, eyes bugging out, “did you blow up the fridge Mr Rocket?”

Rocket sniffs. “Controlled detonation,” he says, “totally professional.”

“What’s this do?” she says, and Groot snatches it out of her hand before she can shoot another hole in the wall.

“Mr _Groot_ ,” she whines, jumping, and Groot giggles at her, and makes a show of hiding it out of her reach. She pouts.

“You don’t want that,” Rocket says, trying to distract her before her eyes get any wider and/or leaky, “you want this,” and hands her the mag-lev board.

“What’s it do?” she says, her expression clearing up in a blink. Sneaky little Terran. Rocket approves.

“Flies,” he grins, and it feels kinda less forced than it did before. “Stand here, tap this button like so and-“ she does it, and in under a second is soaring round the room like a Hungorian scouter-jet, kid’s got skills, and Rocket locks up the balcony door and goes to find Groot some water.

“Are you from space, Mr Rocket?” she asks, and Rocket jumps nearly a foot in the air, glaring at the squirt when she giggles.

“Yep,” he says, “that’s what extraterrestrial means.”

“Coz you look like a raccoon, and we get those here, only they don’t talk.”

“I am Groot!” says Groot, chirpily, from outside, and Amy is immediately distracted.

“What?” she says, “No, silly, that’s not what-“

Rocket slumps against the counter, unique and inimitable, the one-and-goddamn-only, and waits for Groot to make her leave.

 

Rocket regrets fixing the TV almost as soon as he’s done it.

“The laugh track,” he groans, to a sympathetic Claire. “It haunts my dreams. How much of this d’ast show is there, anyway?”

Claire squints at the screen. “Judging by Aniston’s hairstyle, you’ve still got a good four seasons to get through.”

Rocket drags his paws over his eyes. “Gaaah, are you kidding me?”

Claire shrugs. “Sorry. If it’s any consolation, it’s probably just a phase.”

“A phase?”

“Sure. This show’s kinda iconic, most people go through a phase of thinking it’s the best thing in history of television.”

“Huh. How long do they typically last, these phases?”

She whistles through her teeth.

Rocket buries his head in his paws. “I miss prison.”

 

There’s an ominous clunk, and the elevator grinds to a halt.

Rocket face-palms wearily.

“I just fixed this heap of crap.”

“Oh, that was you, was it?” croaks the fossil in the corner. They’d blended so well into the decrepit depths of the lift, Rocket had kinda forgotten they were there. Meh. So now he’s actively ignoring them rather than forgetting about them, big whoop.

He checks his pockets, junk, junk, snack, junk, junk –ooooh. Sweet.

Rocket hums absentmindedly as he works – now, if he connects that to the – ah- _ha_. He reaches for the hyperspanner and finds a Terran.

The old man is bent down, peering interestedly at the mess of wires and blinking lights growing steadily under Rocket’s paws.

“Ain’t never seen tech like that before,” he says, noticing Rocket noticing. “Where’s a critter like you get all that?”

Rocket stiffens. It’s not like he stole it – well, he did steal it, but he’s not _ashamed_ he stole it.

 _Property is theft_ , Claire nods sagely in his memory, and he almost relaxes, except…

Critter.

He doesn’t like the sound of that.

“Here and there,” he sniffs, getting back to work as casually as he can, planning exit routes as he tweaks, cajoles, and threatens all the bits and pieces together.

Different d’ast planet, same d’ast shit.

Laser cutter.

Plasma blaster.

Ceiling hatch.

Door.

Elevator shaft.

He’s escaped from worse.

 “What’s it do?”

Rocket grunts. Looks around. One more piece, he needs one more –

“Give us a lift, gramps,” he smirks, not really asking, and darts up onto the guy’s back. The elevator control panel is now within reach. Rocket snaps off the cover and roots around in its wirey innards, barely listening to the grumbling of his new friend, Chatty-Ladder.

He finds what he’s looking for in seconds, and yanks it loose.

The elevator jerks and groans.

“Yeah, yeah, y’big baby,” Rocket mutters, “You don’t wanna get dismantled, don’t strand me between floors with a mostly dead humey.”

“Mostly dead, huh?”

“Looked in a mirror lately, gramps?” Rocket asks, but there’s no bite to it. He’s trying to remember complicated applied particle physics shit, he ain’t got time to waste aggravating shrivelled-up Terrans.

Something important makes a satisfying click.

 “ _Now_ we’re cooking with quantum,” Rocket hoots, and goes to scale the humey’s head again. The guy holds out a hand.

“What? You wanna be stuck in here with a talking rodent for the rest of your rapidly shortening life? Suck it up, Gramps.”

The old guy doesn’t move.

Rocket sighs and eyes the hand-rail dubiously. He might be able to make it without using the old guy as a launch pad, but it’d be more effort. Ugh.

“Rocket, right?” the fossilised biped asks, and Rocket frowns, squinting at the outstretched hand. Oh, right, handshake.

Weird.

“Right,” he says, slapping a paw into the gnarly palm.

“Abel,” Gramps replies, and shakes.

“Well, Abel,” Rocket says, “this is a rotating cylar field generator, and when I aim it at the winch at the top of the elevator, we’re gonna be outta here faster than me outta jail.” He realises too late that that might not a comfort to the old bone-bag, but –

Abel raises an eyebrow.

“Something you need, pal?”

“Yeah,” says Rocket, chuckling at the imagined look on Quill’s face. “This guy’s shoulder.”

 

The kid is back. The lure of space trees is obviously too much for her tiny Terran mind to resist.

Groot’s out on the balcony, and Rocket watches, bleary-eyed and slightly pissed, as she potters around, asking the occasional question, accidentally firing the occasional laser, and Rocket answers with all the patience he can muster, only he’s just so d’ast tired, and he doesn’t realise he’s missed something until he blinks and looks down, finds her looking up at him, silently.

“What?” he asks, and it’s a snap, he can almost see Quill shooting him a betrayed look, but maybe she won’t visit again, maybe Groot will talk to him instead, maybe he’ll scare her off-

Like a furry little abomination should.

It doesn’t matter what a d’ast Terran infant thinks. It doesn’t _matter_.

She bites her lip, looking worried. Out on the balcony, Groot sways to some Terran slow song, watching the stars come out overhead.

“Are you OK, Mr Rocket?”

He thinks about it.

The implants on his back itch in the heat of the New York summer; it’s been a while since they’ve been infected and he’s not sure how to check. His best friend died for him and is dancing in a plant-pot on their planet-side balcony.

Sometimes he dreams in purple and wakes up screaming.

“When I work it out, kid,” he says, turning to go back to bed, “I’ll let you know.”

 

Rocket’s grouchy when Quill calls. He’d feel bad about it, he would, but his back’s definitely infected and Groot still ain’t talking, except when Amy’s out on the balcony and telling them stories, and honestly he thinks Groot talks to everyone but him, now, to Amy’s mum when she’d come round with welcome booze and a worried expression (he thinks it’s worried. Maybe it’s pissed. Sorta like Quill’s face right now, in fact). And it’s not like she got it, anyway, some people don’t, they deal, it’s fine, but Groot definitely talks to Claire, and they’d probably talk to Abel, and Abel would probably even get it, he’s a listener, that old man, it’s disgusting.

“Ran into some trouble with a Shi’Ar military cruiser off Denarian VI, but we’re all good, thanks for not asking – “

“You got some reason for calling, asshole?”

“And a dog’s taken over Knowhere, Rocket, thought you’d get a kick out of that. Says he wants to do Science with it, what the hell? Anyway-“

Rocket can’t take it.

“Are you done?”

Quill looks surprised, glances behind him like he’s looking for someone.

“Sure, if you’re busy, man, we get it, I think Gamora wanted to say hi, and Drax beat up a Zosarian in a bar the other day, wants to tell you all about it –“

“I’ll pass,” Rocket interrupts, snappier than he means. Quill rears back a bit, and Rocket feels kinda guilty, but really, ha, guilt, this barely scratches the surface, so he doesn’t say sorry, doesn’t explain, doesn’t goddamn regret, just says, a little softer, “tell ‘em I said hi, or something, don’t give ‘em the impression I care.”

“Treat ‘em mean, huh?” Quill nods, like he understands, and Rocket almost tells him that’s not what he meant, not really, but Quill’s signing off, and Rocket salutes, an ironic twist of the paw, and that’s it.

The implants on his back twinge, and he fights back a swell of nausea. Time to shop, he thinks, in that very specific sense he has of getting in without being seen, leaving without being caught, and almost always forgetting to pay recommended retail price (Terrans, seriously. They crack him up). Gotta be something on this rock that’ll fix him up for a while.

 

Rocket’s drunk. Having to break into a vet’s – a d’aast _vet’s_ – for basic meds will do that to a person. A person. He’s a person.

He stumbles across the apartment in the dark, tripping over plant pots and engine covers, laughing and swearing by turns.

Shit.

He hates being drunk. Isn’t really sure how to stop.

Rocket turns to the window and sees that Groot is watching him from their pot, eyes dark and beady in the shadowed room.

He opens his mouth, to apologize maybe, for waking him up. Maybe for fucking up so badly that they’re here at all, and Groot was dead and then they weren’t but they’re still not _talking_.

What comes out instead is a growled “Whadda _you_ looking at?”

Groot’s eyes narrow.

Rocket shrugs, and the room spins around him.

“Y’got a problem?” he asks, belligerent.

Groot just looks at him. It feels like disapproval.

Rocket laughs. “If y’gotta problem, you gotta tell me, pal. Not a d’ast thing I can do if you don’t talk to me.” He leans against the nearest wall, head falling onto his chest, all the fight seeping out of him. “Not a d’ast thing.”

 

Rocket wakes to late morning sun stabbing through the windows and his head splitting like some Kree crazy is running around inside it whacking everything in sight with a big-ass hammer and bellowing about purity. 

Running with the Guardians has done weird shit to his subconscious.

He staggers upright, using a half-disassembled air-con unit (Mrs Vablatsky, two floors down) for balance, and winces as his back twinges.

So Terran meds are crap. Colour him very surprised. No wonder               Quill didn’t want to come back.

A tapping at the window makes him look up. Groot has pulled open the glass enough to let the sunrise in, and is watching him.

Rocket ignores them.

His stomach rumbles, and Rocket agrees, goes through the banging and clattering of his morning routine as obnoxiously as he can without aggravating the mini-Ronan hammering at the inside of his skull. He slams his breakfast down on the low table Claire found dumped on the sidewalk about a week ago, and slouches to eat, slurping his coffee as loudly as he knows how.

“I am Groot.”

“You’re no Melvekian princess yourself, Treebeard,” Rocket responds without thinking, then stiffens. He doesn’t look at Groot, just stares determinedly at his food.

“I am Groot.”

“Well it’s not my fault Terran rodent-drugs aren’t worth crap.”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket snorts. “Sure you are, and I’m the king of Manhattan.”

“I am _Groot_ ,” Groot insists, flailing twigs in Rocket’s general direction.

“OK, OK, you were worried, whatever,” Rocket says, dismissively, punching down the warmth that had risen at Groot’s words. He doesn’t deserve sympathy. Groot should be happy, and he should be guilty. That’s the natural order of things.

Groot makes a noise that sounds like what Amy calls “blowing a raspberry” and Rocket calls making butt sounds with your face, jeez, what even is it with mud-shovellers, anyway? And Rocket, without thinking, sticks his tongue out at them.

Groot laughs, a high, wheezing little sound, and Rocket relaxes, almost without realising.

“You’re a regular chatterbox today, aren’t you?” Rocket scowls, but there’s no heat in it.

The tree regards him solemnly from across the room, and says, softly, “I am Groot.”

Rocket’s grip tightens on his mug. He scrubs a paw over blurry eyes, and sniffs. “You too, buddy,” he says, quietly. “You too.”

 

Usually, when people need Rocket to fix stuff, they just bang on the door. Shout a little. Sometimes Rocket even opens the door.

People don’t usually come in. And they don’t usually bring the broken stuff with them, it’s the building that’s crap, not the Terran taste in gadgetry.

Abel, though, Abel keeps on knocking until Rocket drags himself off the sofa, grumbling.

“Alright, alright, you great walking carcass,” he says, opening the door. “What’s broke?”

Abel looks at him, thoughtfully, then smiles, and hands him a –

“A radio?”

The old man nods. “Sure is. Packed it in just last night. Repair guy said it wasn’t worth fixing, junk older than me, and all.”

“He got that right,” Rocket mutters, then takes proper look at the box. Huh, Gramps wasn’t kidding.

“You people still use _radios_?” he says, with a derisive hoot, then realises that Abel’s not laughing along. He usually manages a wheezy, grumbling chuckle when Rocket bitches about Terra, like an interstellar tourist not liking his planet is the most hilarious thing since Quill’s last plan. Rocket looks up. Abel’s biting his lip, hand shifting on the foldaway handle of the box of –

Rocket replays Abe’s last sentence, and remembers how Terrans get about old stuff, like Quill nearly taking his head off for looking at the little box thing in the bomb rack, and has to resist the temptation to slam his head into the door.

Terrans. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t aggravate ‘em til they leave you the hell alone.

He doesn’t apologise, because he’s not a sap, but he sighs, big, gusty and put-upon, and says “well, bring it in here then. I got nothing but time.”

“Yeah?” says Abel, his face brightening. “Well, that’s right kind of you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rocket says, rolling his eyes, and gestures at Abe impatiently til he walks in the door.

It’s only when they reach the main room that Rocket realises that Abe doesn’t know about Groot.

He freezes.

The tree’s out on the balcony, swaying in the rain as the clouds blow themselves up into a storm. Idjit always did like a spectacle. They’re unmistakeable in their difference, surrounded by green and growing things in a way that highlights everything that makes Groot Groot, and not a weed in a jar.

He doesn’t want-

He’s sure Abe would be fine with it. He’s fine with Rocket, isn’t he? Talking rodent, talking tree, you say tomato, all that garbage.

But he doesn’t like this feeling, like he was supposed to have Groot’s back and he dropped the ball, letting a stranger into their place. Like he’s left them exposed.

So Rocket does what he does best, well, second best, or maybe third, after thieving and making things go boom, Rocket talks, he talks and talks and talks, tinkering away at the little old box, waving his paws extravagantly and chucking tools around, anything to keep Abel’s eyes off the balcony.

“And tonight on Radio Free Knowhere,” says a voice with a near impenetrable Russian accent (Rocket recognises it from apartment 3A, there are Russians on Knowhere, what the hell?), we are proud to present Adam Warlock and the Universal Church of Truth, to discuss recent dewelopments on Xandar Prime-“

“Is that from space?” Abel asks, and Rocket points a threatening spanner.

“Not a word, Wrinkles,” he says, “you asked me to fix it, I fixed it. Better’n new.”

“No, no, that’s perfect,” Abe says, hoarsely, “just so long as it still gets Trish Walker in the mornings-“

“I am Groot!”

Abel freezes.

Rocket groans.

“So, I guess it’s time you met my roommate,” he says, and waves a paw at the window, where Groot is leaning round the glass like he’s craning to see.

Rocket waits. The silence spreads. Abel’s jaw is dropped. Groot tilts his head, curious, and Rocket shrugs at him, helplessly, waits for the other green-matter bomb to drop (long story).

“Well, ain’t that something,” Abel murmurs, and that tone is awe, Rocket knows that tone. Groot stares back, for a moment, then returns Rocket’s shrug, and turns to face the storm again. There’s a humming with the swaying now, just faintly heard beneath the thunder, and Rocket feels his face twitch in something that someone who didn’t know him at all might thing was an affectionate smile. He’s got an itch, alright, he’s an itchy twitchy creature, and he has blasters, so drop your psychologising before you get shot in it.

“I ever tell you the story of Cain and Abel, Rocket?”

“Don’t think so, Gramps,” Rocket says, kinda absently, waiting for the unneeded adrenaline to shut the hell up and let him relax already.

“These two brothers, way back, or maybe never, never did get that straight, and Cain grew green things, and Abel watched the sheep. And one day the Lord their God comes down from heaven and says it’s time for offerings, to show how much they love him. And they go away, and they bring back the best, Cain with plants like you’ve never seen, the size and the shape and the swell of them, and Abel brings back his fattest, juiciest lamb for the slaughter, and the Lord their God takes the lamb, and he doesn’t even glance at Cain. Not a word, not a smile. And Cain goes away, and he broods some, and then he kills Abel for the love of the Lord, and maybe for the love of them green and growing things.”

“There a point to this story, Gramps?” Rocket asks, suppressing a shiver. Most Terran stories, like on the box or in those shiny paper things 5C’s always cackling about, ain’t all that; there’s no bite to them. Abel’s are better, but they’re usually dirtier. This one is old, and cold, and weird, and he’s not sure he likes it, much.

“I always thought Cain had the right of it,” Abel says, staring at Groot with something like wonder. “Working with your hands, in the dirt. Making life.”

Rocket doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s never grown anything in his life, never created anything – except, he realises, thought taking root in his chest like a sunflower, warm and glowing and proud, looking around the apartment, lush with leaves and littered with metal, he has.

“You could be right, pal,” he says, eventually, “you could be right.”

 

“And then she starts yapping about some-“ Rocket trips over a plant plot – “what even is this, how did it get here, I don’t-“

Claire picks up the tiny pot. “It’s a cactus,” she says, “Lin from downstairs left it for you as a thank you for fixing their air-con, I think.”

“I fixed their- OK, fine, I fixed their air-con, what...what was I saying-“

“I honestly have no idea,” Claire says, grinning, and Rocket almost grins back, you can’t help but smile when Claire smiles, even when she’s all blurry, and kind of-

“Fine, whatever, what’s-“

“When was the last time you slept?”

Rocket wonders what a cactus is, and how it equates to half an hour of sweaty labour and hungover swearing.

“What.”

“Sleep, Rocket? That thing that helps you remember the ends of your sentences and not trip over pot plants?”

He can’t place her tone, he realises, swaying on his paws, usually tone’s better than faces, he has a tone, he knows from tone, flat pink terran faces make jack-all sense to him. She’s taking the piss, he thinks, in a good way, like a Quill way, or a Groot way, not a lab tech way, but there’s something else in there too. Buggered if he knows. Amy’s mom sounds like that when Amy’s sick, or sad, sometimes sleepy and babbling.

“Hey, can I-“ Claire asks, reaching out a hand, no paws here, Terrans what even, and Rocket nods before he realises she’s asking to touch him, like he trusts her or some shit, which, ugh, wrong, maybe he does need to sleep-

And there’s a hand on his shoulder and it’s leading him to the sofa, and there’s a blanket and a murmur and twig-like fingers carding through his hair.

“No sleep,” he says, as he drifts off, “no more dreams.”

“Sure, Rocket,” Claire says, and a door shuts somewhere far off and somebody whispers “I am Groot” and then he’s gone.

 

Groot answers the door before Rocket can get to it, the dumb weed, you’d think getting blown into tiny spiky pieces would make them a bit less d’ast trusting, and Rocket settles for pointing the nearest gun at the door and banging his head slowly and repeatedly on the kitchen door frame.

“Oh, hey Groot,” says Amy’s mom, with a smile, before looking round for Rocket. The gun is propped up behind a slightly smoking desktop (4B, paid up front in fertiliser) before you can say “oh crap, it’s got a g-“.  “Evening Rocket,” she says when she sees him, waving a hand and also some antibiotics. “Got you something for your back, Amy said Groot said you were still having trouble – oh, I love this episode!”

Rocket goes back to banging his head against the doorframe.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, excitedly, and Amy’s mom has shortened down her “oh sweetie, you know I don’t understand what you’re-“ to a fond and thoughtful look (at least Rocket thinks that’s what it is. He’s getting better at faces, but give him a mouth full of goddamn attitude any day of the week), and says “I think you’ll like it, Chandler gets a new girlfriend, and-“

Rocket tunes this out, turns his attention to the food he’s been poking at from atop the kitchen crate. Dumb Terran-height counters, he’s tearing them out, first chance he gets. Or maybe a platform round the – no, then they’d be stuck closed. Attached to the doors.

Eventually he remembers that he’s supposed to be eating (especially if he wants the antibiotics, giving a shit about your health is exhausting, do real people do this all the time?) and drops the measuring tape for the plate, heading out to the lounge before he remembers what’s on the d’ast box.

Amy’s mom looks up when he enters and smiles, and he rearranges the scowl before she gets the wrong idea.

“I love this show,” she says. “I’m always telling Amy, “don’t think this is what life will be like when you’re older,” you know. “It’s fun but it’s not realistic. No waitress lives in an apartment that big, even if she’s splitting the rent.” That kind of thing.”

“No talking trees,” Rocket comments, gruffly. Something tells him this is not the moment to extemporize on the theme of “I’ve seen floating heaps of space turds more entertaining than this show”, but he does kind of agree with her. Even without him and Groot, it’s nothing like his experience of Terra.

“It’s a major failing,” she nods, all serious, but her eyes are laughing. He thinks maybe she’s laughing with him, though? That’s, that’s alright, he thinks, twisting the thought around from all angles, like a bomb-part that needs adding. Huh. OK then.

 

Rocket’s fixing up Abe’s mobility scooter when Quill calls next. His back’s almost healed, there’s a cool breeze running through the apartment and ruffling the leaves, making Groot hum down on the floor where they’re handing Amy crayons. She snaps stubby fingers imperiously, and they watch, entranced, as the picture grows below them. Amy sticks her tongue out, face going all crinkly between her eyebrows in a way that means she’s concentrating.

Rocket pulls his gaze away, whistles through his teeth as he taps the spanner against the table top, thinking about the best way to make the d’ast thing fly without drawing too much attention. He hadn’t been going to, was just going to fix it up when it keeled over like the mud-made piece of crap it was. But 5C (he’s not going to dignify her with a name, the wizened old bat) had overheard them, and given Rocket and then Abe an earful about gallivanting around like he’s twenty-three, and how dangerous and irresponsible they both are, and how in her day they waited months on end for the elevator repair man, and they were grateful, none of this new-fangled space garbage, and Abe had leant down mid rant and muttered out of the corner of his mouth “how’s about making the damn thing fly?”

He knew there was a reason he liked that guy.

“Hey, Rocket, how’s – is that a _kid_ on your floor?” Amy looks up from her drawing (it’s spread over five sheets of paper now and shows no signs of ending), waves, and asks Groot for the plant-lady-green.

Rocket takes a moment to enjoy the way Quill’s jaw is flapping, then says “your planet is a dump, Quill.”

Quill looks away from Amy with difficulty, and smirks at Rocket. “Aw, missing your cell? I’m sure they’d let you back if you asked nicely, Rocket.”

“Nah,” Rocket says, waving a dismissive paw. “The company was terrible.”

Quill barks a laugh, and they chat, talking about this and that, the latest Guardians’ brawls – missions, _missions_ , Rocket, stop laughing dammit. Rocket tells him about 5C and Abel’s floating scooter, Quill responds with a story about a small air octopus that imprinted on Gamora on Deltan IV. Gamora herself wanders past the camera at one point, and waves hello, hair up in a towel turban, cleaning her fingernails with the blade of Dax’s favourite knife.

They break off a little while after that; the sound of rampaging Drax (and breaking ship) sends Quill scurrying off to threaten to throw Drax out the airlock if he’s broken the primary radiator coil _again_.

Rocket looks up to find Amy looking at him. “Are those your space friends, Mr Rocket?” she says, eyes wide and interested.

“Sure kid,” Rocket says, coming over to check out her drawing. “They’re my space friends.”

“I am Groot!” Groot says, and Rocket thinks maybe they’re smiling.

 

Rocket comes in from making some acquisitions, completely legal, what the hell you talking about, theft, the nerve, to a loud, metallic clanging. He drags his heavily laden bag up the stairs, and in the gaps between the bangs can just make out 5C’s tv, blaring out the news for the whole d’ast building to hear, just like always-

_-protesters gather outside the Richmond County courthouse-_

Clang.

- _in which the death of Eric Garner on -_

Clang.

\- _the Grand Jury verdict_ _is clear-_

Clang.

_\- no indictment will be-_

Clang.

Rocket reaches for his keys.

Clang. It’s definitely coming from his apartment. What in the d’ast hell is that d’ast tree up to now?

He peers cautiously round the door.

Groot is out on the balcony. They look up and shrug as Rocket comes in, tiny tree-face scrunched with worry.

Claire is standing over a twisted hunk of scrap metal lifted from some junkyard out east with a long-handled hammer.

Rocket makes a “what the hell?” face at Groot, who shrugs again, and then points emphatically at Claire.

Rocket mouths “why me?” but doesn’t wait for an answer. He drags his loot inside, then looks up at the Terran.

“What’d that hunk of junk ever do to you?” he asks.

“It looked at me funny,” Claire growls, swinging down again. How she got it in the mag-vice, Rocket doesn’t know, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in its dumbass tombstone teeth, alright. He surreptitiously checks the apartment for holes.

“Or it was-“ she swings “holding a really scary waterpistol. Or-“ the clang is louder this time, sweat drips down her face as she scrubs at it roughly with a free hand. “existing in a fucking white neighbourhood Jesus-“ clang “fucking” clang “Christ.”

Rocket has no idea what to do. He opens his mouth, but Claire beats him to it.

“Doesn’t it make you angry?”

“What?” Rocket says, caught off guard.

“People call you rodent, right? Vermin? I’ve heard them, that’s a – that’s a thing people do?”

Groot growls, suddenly very audible, from the balcony. Rocket waves him off, drags a paw down his face. He’s too tired for this.

“Doesn’t it make you angry?” Claire asks, again, and Rocket laughs.

When Rocket first broke out, and he means the very first time, here, he bit the first fucker that called him a thing. Shot the second. Took an eye out of the third. Fourth one turned out to be the filth, which is just Rocket’s gods-damned luck, and led to break out number 2.

Turns out, you can’t maim the whole d’ast galaxy. He knows. He’s tried.

Rocket is still angry, somewhere down deep. But mostly, these days, he’s just really d’ast tired.

“Don’t be stupid, kid,” he says. “Rodents don’t have feelings.”

She lets the hammer handle drop to the floor. It’s like she deflates all at once, and Rocket realises that some of the water on her face isn’t sweat.

“Beer?” he says, because he’s got nothing else.

Claire laughs, a little, and wipes her face again.

“Sure,” she says. “Why the fuck not.”

 

 “You want to _what_?”

Rocket is kinda upside down in the washing machine shell he’s keeping tools, gadgets, explosives and the occasional – hey, is that a piece of pizza? With a topping of green and fluffy, ugh – when Amy drops the bomb, so his bafflement is kinda muffled, and he may have banged his head on the box with the anti-matter grenades in it when she spoke, because how’d the d’ast kid get in here anyway? He reels his head back into the apartment proper, and takes a good look around. Sun’s up, Groot’s a-watching – oh, he does _not_ believe it.

“Turn that crap off,” he says, and Groot grows a tiny twig hand for the exclusive purpose of giving him the finger, which is a move he will eventually pull bloody revenge on Claire for teaching them, and Rocket rolls his eyes.

“If I get that song in my head again, I will blow that box up so hard they’ll hear it on Ringworld, cap-ee-scay?”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Rocket focuses up. Amy is standing in front of him, looking hopeful. It’s like a tiny, less annoying version of the face Quill pulls when he tries to convince Gamora to go clubbing, and knowing Amy it’s gonna be a hell of lot more successful.

“A picnic,” he says, sceptically.

Groot shoots him a look. He says it again, a little less sceptically. It’s not like the kid notices when he’s being an a-hole, shit just bounces right off her.

“Yes! In Central Park! I haven’t been since the eczema-terbestials blew up the carousel, and mum said-“

“Ex-tra-terr-est-rial, come on, kid, I know you can get this-“

“I am _Groot._ ”

“Fine, ya bleedin’ heart-“

“- I could invite you and Groot and Claire and Abel, and they already said yes, so please say yes Mr Rocket –“

“Groot already said yes, huh?” Rocket says, raising his eyebrows at the treetorous little weed, and Groot makes those big pleading eyes that always get them into trouble, and Rocket sighs.

“Fine,” he says, and accepts Amy’s excited hug-‘n’-squeal with the best grace he can manage, “but only to get that d’ast show off the box. I hear one more laugh track, there’s gonna be fire.”

“And screaming?” Amy asks, looking up at him from where she’s wrapped round his middle.

Rocket grins. “Now you’re getting it.”

 

_-amazing scenes from Central Park today as a portal opens over-_

The newsreader’s voice drifts down the stairs as Rocket bangs the door open, Groot hop-skipping along behind him to keep up and waving frantic tendrils in the air.

“Unbelievable!”

“I am Groot!”

Abel stumps up behind them, Claire on his arm like she’s not holding him up. There’s dust in her hair and a scuff-mark on her face. Humans. So leaky. Quill was even worse. Rocket tries to remember where he put the med box.

“Now that is not true,” he says, pointing a warning paw at the tree on the step above him.

“I am Groot.”

“That’s not the point, moron!”

_\- bystanders frozen in shock as –_

Amy is wrapped around her mum, who hasn’t let go of her, or spoken a word (it’s not like she’s a chatterbox,  tiny freak gods know where Amy got it from, kid must be adopted) for kinda a while, and Rocket thinks maybe humey eyes shouldn’t be that wide, not all the time, but what does he know, huh?

“I am Groot!”

“Of course not, ya dumb tree, that’s not what I’m _saying_ -“

Rocket fumbles the key into the lock and kicks the door open, and doesn’t bother to make a fuss when his crew of humanoid ducklings waddle in after. They get comfortably into the main room, then collapse like their joint-cables have snapped; Abel on the couch with Amy’s mum beside him, Amy still clinging like a squid-monkey, and Claire up against the pot with all the green. Rocket snorts, like that narrows it down any. It’s a spreading, spidery green, from a tiny thing Abel’s granddaughter gave him month or so back. It’s sneaking legs into the next pot over, putting down roots. Plant’s got a d’ast nerve. The sound of 5C’s TV drifts through the wall, then becomes an echo as Abel switches Groot’s set on.

_\- dealt with by a group of unknown heroes –_

“I am Groot!”

Rocket rolls his eyes, grabs a six pack from the fridge and tosses it to Abel via Groot express, and starts rooting around in the shell of the building next door’s ex-washing machine for the box he liberated from a clinic downtown.

“I am Groot!”

“Don’t try that with me!” He kicks the box over to Claire, who looks at it blankly. “Got something on your face,” he says, gesturing at the scuff. He’s never patched anyone up before, and he ain’t starting now, but Claire smiles like he offered and starts rooting around inside.

_\- thought to be Jessica Jones, the PI-turned-vigilante who recently made the headlines for a –_

Abel offers Amy’s mum a beer, and Amy takes it for her when she doesn’t move, laughing slightly when Abel clinks his bottle gravely against hers.

“I AM GROOT!”

“It was dumb! It was a jackass move, and people got hurt! Can’t just do whatever the hell you want, not when there’s collateral to worry about!”

“I am Groot!”

“Yeah, but there’s being an a-hole, and then there’s being a dick! There’s a line, pal!”

_\- aided by a racoon with a gun and a talking tree –_

“Hey, hey,” Abel says, leaning down to Amy and pointing up at the screen. “We’re on TV!”

Amy stares, wide-eyed, and giggles as a tiny pixel-Groot slaps a, whaddaya call it, newsreader just said it –

_\- what appeared to be pterodactyls –_

-ah, that’s right, _pterodactyl_ outta the air.

“Quill is dead,” Rocket growls at Groot, waving what’s left of his valve-wrench at the tree, who’s just about his height now and whose face is twisted with rage. “Dead!

“I am Groot!”

“Don’t give me that crap, of course it’s his fault. It’s his d’ast planet, isn’t it?”

“I am Groot!”

“Look,” Abe says, pointing, “that’s me, right there,” and Amy grins, watching tiny-Abe mow down a pointy flying menace with his all new and improved mobility scooter. Even Amy’s mum, sitting shell-shocked and silent on the couch, arms fulla Amy, fidgety fidgeting at the clasp of her bag, manages a smile.

_\- reports the damage is extensive but nobody was killed –_

“I don’t believe this,” Rocket says, paws dragging at his fur, “I actually cannot-“

“I am Groot!”

“So help me if you say “they were on a break” ONE MORE TIME!”

The silence is bigger and deeper and wider than space.

Then Amy says, a propos of nothing, “I want a pterodactyl.”

Rocket shoots Abel a look that says “do you wanna field that, or shall I?” and Claire slides, giggling helplessly, down her plant pot and into a dusty heap on the floor.

***

Rocket whistles as he scuttles up the fire-escape; it’s been a good day for all four-legged freaks of nature; Groot’s on his balcony, yesterday’s pizza’s in the fridge, and-

Punchy from the Park is sitting on his couch.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Jessica Jones.”

“And I’m “don’t care” of the Fifth Avenue “Fuck Offs””, Rocket says, and waits. When no fucking off is forthcoming, he says “whaddaya waiting for, a gold-plated exvitation?”

“I’m waiting,” she says, in that same tone of suppressed rage and sarcasm that Rocket remembers from the Park fiasco, “to offer you a job, asshole.”

Rocket blinks.

“Right,” he says, “sure. Kids’ party, something like that?”

She shrugs. “Theft. Extortion. Blackmail. Occasional menacing. Business is booming, so I’m outsourcing.”

“Hero business?” Rocket asks, remembering the news. “Rough gig.”

Jones snorts. “Not a hero, Short Stuff. Just trying to make a living.”

“Ain’t we all,” Rocket says, and wonders if he means it. Wonders if it’s just a job, the Guardians, like all the other jobs. Sure, more perks, greater chance to inflict grievous bodily violence, but a job. He’s starting to think, maybe, there’s a difference between making a living, and living, though.

“How?” Jones asks, sceptically. “Shooting pterodactyls come with a price tag?”

Rocket shrugs. “I fix stuff. Always something broken on this crappy planet.”

“Damn right,” Jones mutters.

“Seriously, lady, why are you here?”

Jones shrugs. “Just thought you might fancy something a little more challenging,” she says, tucking the file back into her bag. “Guess not.”

She’s almost at the door before Rocket says “what’s my take?”

“20%,” Jones says, instantly, “might go up depending on the job. Some days that’ll be 20% of nothing, fair warning.”

Rocket pretends to think about it. But only pretends, because he hasn’t stolen something in about three days and his paws are getting itchy.

“I’m in.”

 

Sometimes Rocket dreams about the lab. Sometimes, in dreams, he remembers being an animal, safe-content-scared-hungry-horny-hurt-scared. Sometimes he dreams that the cage walls are shrinking, closing in around him. Sometimes he dreams that he wakes up and he’s still an animal. He tries to talk to Groot, to yell for Claire, for Abel, anybody who can save him, who knows that he’s in there. But he can’t talk. Not any more. Sometimes the lab floods purple and everybody dies. Scientists, mercenaries, prisoners, Quill, Groot, Gamora, Drax, all melting and blistering and tearing away into itty bitty pieces. Sometimes, in dreams, Rocket remembers what infinity feels like.

Sometimes Rocket dreams that long thin twigs are carding through his fur, soft and soothing and sad, and then sometimes he sleeps without dreams.

More often than not, now, he dreams about plants.

 

It’s been a few weeks since the picnic incident and Rocket is tinkering. Abel’s started badgering him about a replacement scooter, and Rocket doesn’t tell him that he started building one about five hours after the picnic incident, by way of making it more shooty/pointy/explodery. Groot’s off with Amy’s plant-lady; he comes back looking taller and greener every time, so Rocket doesn’t whine about it too much. He thinks he can probably make the scooter faster, too, and maybe give it a stealth mode, or some shit like that, and he’s just wondering where he put the phase-couplings when there’s a knock on the door.

He levels a gun at the door without pausing for breath (it’s not paranoia if the men in white coats really are out to get you, alright, wise-ass?), and gets deductory. Not Groot, who never knocks and isn’t due back for a few hours, anyway; not Amy, since she usually just comes down the fire-escape, and anyway she’s got karate. Rocket tries to remember why he knows this, and gives up in exasperation. Jones just lands on the balcony like the obnoxious a-hole she is. There’re dents, her lead-weight feet have hit so often. Turns out she wasn’t kidding about business being busy.

Abel only just finished bitching about how his old legs aren’t what they used to be, woe is me, been mugged by the passage of linear time, etc, and Rocket would be surprised if he’s even made it back to his apartment yet, never mind started coming back. Creaky sod.

Claire? S’probably Claire.

He leaves the gun to the side of the doorframe, within easy reach, and opens the door. The first thing he sees is beer.

“Make yourself at home,” he says, and Claire follows him in to the apartment.

They’ve been doing this for a while, even before the whole pterodactyls-ate-my-tagine thing, drinks on the balcony. Rocket knows about her college majors, her friends, the asswipe at her gym that won’t stop hassling her for a date (might pay him a visit, if only to make sure Groot doesn’t get there first, the sap), and he’s told her a bit about the Guardians, about Groot and space and the life they had before New York, and it’s kinda wigging him out how much he’s not wigging out about it. D’ast planet’s turned him squishy. He thinks mute curses in Quill’s general direction, and takes the beer that Claire passes him, sitting down on the balcony with his legs over the edge.

“So, this is kind of an apology beer,” she says, after a minute.

Rocket freezes, because that sounds like the beginning of a feelings conversation, and he ain’t doing that. Nuh-uh. No way in hell.

“Because you sounded kind of mad at me, you know, after the-“ she waves a hand, and Rocket realises that’s probably Terran gibberish for “prehistoric bat-lizards falling through a hole in the fabric of space-time”, “-thing.”

Rocket sips his beer, and waits. Lets her stew. This came outta nowhere, he’s not even pissed, had actually forgotten about the whole thing, but he’s got a terrible weakness for bait-the-Terran.

“And I’m not saying I did anything wrong,” she says, “because I didn’t. At all. And I saved your scrawny little butt, and some other people’s too, and you can thank me whenever, for that, by the way-“

Rocket scratches, idly, and tries not to snigger. Sometimes, the kid sounds a lot like Quill, and it’s probably not as funny as he thinks it is, but hey. He’ll take it.

Her voice trails off, a little. She sips her beer, and stares into the darkening skyline like it’s got words for her.

“-but I think maybe you were scared? Or worried, or something, and I didn’t mean to do that. Worry you. Or whatever. I just wanted to help.”

Rocket thinks about that, for a minute, thinks about this kid apologising to him for nearly getting herself killed taking on death-on-wings with a baseball bat, and there’s a tiny derisive bit of him that thinks she’s batshit, and a bigger part that kinda wants to hug her, which, what the hell? And he thinks about the way Groot looks at him, sometimes. The way they keep giving him things, people and plants and pieces of junk to make better, and there’s a little lightbulb in his brain, like that cartoon Amy likes with the beep-beeping bird and the trap-dog thing.

“You did good,” he says, finally. Claire glances at him sidelong, fleeting and surprised. There’s a little smile on her face when she faces the skyline again, and the urge to ruin the moment gets too strong to ignore (the moment is taunting him, alright, it’s so bloated and huge and ridiculous, it’s getting what’s coming to it, plain and simple), and he adds, “dumb as a brick, but good.”

The moment deflates in a fog of sentimental garbage breath, and Rocket breathes a sigh of relief. “I mean, a bat? They not have self-preservation on Terra?”

Claire laughs, startled and bright. “Sure we do,” she says, “you think I coulda outrun that? Had a better shot with the bat.”

“Sure you did,” Rocket says. “Hey, you’re not related to anybody name of Quill, are you?”

“No,” Claire says, puzzled. “Why?”

“Just a guy I know. Challenged a deranged lunatic with a planet-killing hammer to a dance-off.”

“Yeah, and if I spell orange out backwards it’ll sound like gullible, right?”

Rocket shrugs. “It worked, too. I can show you the medal, if you like.”

“Really? You got a medal?

“Meh,” Rocket says, “basically a medal. I mean, sure, it _looks_ like it’s just my newly cleaned criminal record, but _technically_ -“

Claire laughs, and they sip their beer in companionable silence for a moment.

“So some guy in my government class spotted me on the news.”

“Yeah?” Rocket asks, interested. “What’d he do?”

“I think he wants to be my sidekick,” Claire says, thoughtfully. “He kept going on about protecting my secret identity or something.”

Rocket cackles. “You got groupies!” he says, “Unbelievable. Kid, your planet is weird.”

“He was pretty sweet about it,” Claire protests, and Rocket groans. “Don’t get all mushy on me, Lizard-killer, I get enougha that from the tree and their TV obsession. Timeless romance my furry ass.”

“What? Ew, no,” Claire says, “I go for girls. Also, I cannot believe Groot thinks Rachel should have ended up with Ross, what is up with that?”

“Ah, cut them some slack,” Rocket says, mellowed by time and maturity and – yeah, it’s definitely the beer talking – “they died recently, they’re a bit scrambled in the brain-pan.”

“They _died_?” Claire exclaims, and Rocket remembers why he doesn’t do these conversations. Idjit Terran. Too d’ast easy to talk to.

“They got better,” he says, and it’s as blank as he can make it, but he thinks the bitterness is still there. And doesn’t that make him the most selfish dick in the entire galaxy? Groot got better, but they were still dead, and Rocket had had to pick up the splinters, had to live with it having been for him, (and not just him, but they didn’t know them like he did, did they?).

Claire hesitates, then reaches out.

Rocket flinches, then leans into her hand.

 

“Knew a lady like that once,” Abel says, absently, eyes on the screen. One of the idiots Groot loves so much has a dad, who’s singing in a deep, husky voice, and Rocket is resolutely not listening and focussing on the blaster he’s upgrading. “Beautiful voice. Kick like a mule.”

“And already I know she’s too good for you,” Rocket says, not really paying attention.

“She’s dead now,” Abel says, and Rocket starts paying attention. “Her and all her friends. Most of the ones I met, anyhow. They got sick. Real sick, and the government didn’t do squat.”

“What’s the government got to do with it?” Rocket says. Government’s got shit to do with sick people, as far as he knows. Some places got doctors, some don’t. Some places you got to pay for them, others you don’t. Not many, you don’t. And if you’re a hairy little abomination, you don’t get treated at all. Except maybe so you’re healed up for the next run through the maze.

Abel explains the welfare state.

Rocket stares.

Abel sighs, and tries to explain the social contract.

If Rocket had a hairline, his eyebrows would be shooting into it. “What the shit?”

“Terrans, right?” Abel shrugs, his eyes twinkling. When they fall back on the screen, he sags a little.

“It was the damnedest thing,” he says, quietly.

 

Rocket is so fucking pissed. He doesn’t even know why, it’s just a day, just another lousy day on stinking Terra with this goddamn tree – and that’s when he walks out of the apartment, because he hates it when he gets to the point where he starts hating Groot, hates the look in their eyes, because they can always tell, and if he wasn’t such a piece of shit-

He ends up on a fire-escape some shitty end of town, prepping for the next job, he can do that with his eyes shut, doesn’t need to think or be a decent actual person, instead of a fucking rodent– there’s a thud beside him, and he looks up to see Jones, whisky bottle in hand, staring out into the dark.

“Rough night?” she asks, and he laughs, utterly humourless.

She sits down beside him, and offers him the bottle.

“Really?” he says, and she huffs.

“Fine. Be like that.”

They sit in silence for a while, listen to the sirens passing, distant yelling, the rush-rattle-rumble of the subway.

“I have this neighbour,” Jones says, after a minute, “he says if I won’t quit drinking, I should at least quit drinking alone.”

“Sounds like a dick. And I didn’t ask, by the way.”

“Sure, he’s the dick,” she says, but she sounds like she might be smiling, a little.

“Nope, I’m an asshole, not a dick. Fine line.”

“Really,” Jones says, dryly.

“Really,” Rocket says, “and you better remember it.”

Sirens pass in the distance. Some guy throws up in the alley below, staggering along the wall, and across the street Rocket can make out late night TV sounds from the open window four floors up.

“What’re you doing here, Jones?”

Rocket hears her shrug.

“Wanted to see how the job was going.”

Rocket snorts. “Oh, yeah, I’m working real hard here. Can’t you tell?”

“Fine,” she huffs, “that kid from your apartment building called. Said she heard you storming out, and that the weed was worried-“

“Ha!” Rocket says, “that’s rich!” And feels like a dick.

“Dick,” Jones says, flatly. “Why’re you pissed at the plant? It’s adorable, if you’re into that Disney shit.”

“What shit?”

“Never mind.”

“I’m not pissed at Groot.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Excuse you,” Rocket says, shaken out of his haze of angry-sad-pissed-loathing by a sudden jolt of fucking offended, asshole, “I’m a fantastic liar. Best in the business. Ask anyone.”

“Sure,” Jones says, sarcastically, “you should put that on your card.”

Rocket flips her off.

“Guilt makes people do stupid shit,” Jones murmurs, after a minute.

“What?” Rocket says; he’s not sure he heard her right, and what the hell does she know, anyway?

“I’ve heard,” she adds, like that undoes it.

“Like being pissed at someone for saving your life?”

“Yeah,” she says, “just like that.”

“Huh,” Rocket says. “You’re crap at this.”

“Hell yes,” Jones says, and takes a long swig from the bottle before passing it back to him. “So let’s get pissed and not tell our respective Jiminy Crickets, alright?”

“First thing you’ve said makes sense all night,” Rocket says, with feeling, and drinks.

 

Groot passes him the painkillers (they found one that works, weeks ago, courtesy of Amy’s mom, the woman’s magic, honest) without comment. They don’t even look disapproving, never mind judging.

Doesn’t matter. Rocket’s doing all the judging.

The tree waits for a minute, til Rocket’s taken his medicine and sat back on the couch with a pained sigh, then says “I am Groot.”

“Shut up.” Rocket closes his eyes, and tries to ignore the pounding in his head.

“I am Groot,” the idjit weed says, insistently, and Rocket, grudgingly distracted, thinks about it. It’s been, huh, coupla months at least since he’s gotten black out drunk.

“I am Groot,” they continue, and the answer comes easier now, like his brain’s gotten in gear in an attempt to drive away from the spiky-mallet-wielding hangover. This time with Jones, last time Claire had wandered in and tried to con him out of his hard-earned pizza money, and maybe Abe the time before?

“Maybe a bit longer.”

Groot stares at him.

“Fine,” Rocket admits. “Not since before the whole mess with the pterodactyls, you happy now?”

“I am Groot?”

Rocket shrugs, then fights back a swell of nausea. “I guess,” he says, helplessly, “but I don’t see what naptime on the regular has to –“

He gets the distinct impression that Groot is growing eyebrows just to raise them at him.

“So, what, I’m all better now, is that it?” Rocket snarls, stamping down on the roiling of his stomach and brain, “call the futzing holoreels, vermin lab experiment miraculously cured of being a piece of shit? This look like fixed to you, asshat?”

“I am Groot,” they say, quietly.

“Oh,” Rocket says. He swallows hard. “Really?”

The tree nods.

No fixing. Only growing. That sounds about right, to Rocket, it’s about of a piece with the way things usually go for him. Only this time it sounds less like a drag-downer and more like hope.

“Never thought about it like that.”

Groot radiates smugness.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the wisest tree in the forest, jackass.”

 

“Is that the fucking Friends theme?” Jones says, while they’re perched on a rooftop, waiting for a thieving slimeball to come out of the restaurant where he’s menacing some old lady, fists and camera (the blonde that Jones hangs out with sometimes made a face when Rocket brought his new gun, so it’s stashed at the office) at the ready.

Rocket’s glad he didn’t bring his gun, because it gives him both paws to drag down his face while he groans.

“Groot,” he says, and Jones hums, not taking her eyes off the restaurant.

“Sure,” she says, sarcastically, which, bad move, Punchy.

“Watch it,” he says, “you recognised it pretty d’ast quick.”

“Trish was into it!” Jones says, defensively, then – “ha, very funny, asshole.”

“I’m a fucking delight,” Rocket says.

There’s muffled shouting and a crash from the restaurant. They both tense, then resettle. Waiting their cue.

“Maybe we should swap,” Rocket says, conversationally, “let Trish and the tree listen to the cackle-track until their ears bleed, and we’ll stay well away.”

“Careful, asshole, or I might start to think you like me.”

“And there I was thinking you were smart.”

 

Rocket can’t see the floor for green, and people keep giving him stuff. _Groot_ keeps giving him stuff, and Rocket doesn’t even want to know how they’re finding all these sprouts and saplings and shit. He didn’t think there was this much green _in_ this d’ast city. He’s never seen any, and he goes out more than Groot. He’d thought, anyway.

Claire brings cuttings from her college gardens. Amy’s mum brings him orphans from her book-group, whatever the hell that is. 5C even brought him something, and Rocket’s sure it died out of spite. Maybe the old hag poisoned it, to give her something else to complain about.

Doesn’t matter how much he bitches, the stuff keeps coming. And he keeps finding them places to live, rigging up lights and watering systems and fucking sprinklers, good job the super never visits, grumbling all the live-long day, like the great Xandarian blouse this d’ast planet has turned him into. And if he feels a bit warm, a bit breathless, a bit turned about by all the healthy happy growth around him, twining into the apartment and the furniture and around the bathroom sink, well, who’s going to know? It’s mostly Groot’s fault, anyway.

And then one morning Amy brings him a bean sprout in a jamjar, and Rocket takes it in careful paws and finds it the best spot on the balcony, great light without being a heat-ravaged death trap, in easy reach for watering (Rocket) and petting (Groot, the sap). Amy hugs him, suddenly, without warning, and Rocket hugs back, and thinks maybe he’s done ok.

 

The interplanetary connection starts beeping just as Rocket gets back from putting the popcorn on.

“And there’s a city under the ground and metal whales and flying fish-“ Amy bounces up and down, explaining the movie to Abel, who’s listening intently and doesn’t seem to mind her giving the plot of the next two hours away.

Claire is kneeling next to the DVD player, frowning at the remote and then at the box, while Amy’s plant lady (Callie, her name’s Callie, eventually Rocket’s gonna remember it, no word of a lie) slings an arm around her neck and peers over her shoulder, teasing her for her tech-failings.

“Pizza’s here,” Amy’s mum says, swinging through the door with a stack at least Amy’s height, if not Rocket’s, of boxes in hand, and Abel levers himself off the sofa, grumbling, to help her.

Rocket lets them get on with it, and wanders over to the monitor, presses a few buttons until the bottom half of Quill’s face, blown up huge, fills the screen. Groot follows him, levering themself up on the counter on two elbows of branching twigs and peering up into the ugly pink mess.

“Is this thing on? Rocket? Dammit, Gamora, you said you fixed the –“

“I did fix it,” Gamora says, in a dangerous voice, from off-screen. “It’s hardly my fault that the oaf-“

“Watch who you call oaf, assassin, or I will-“ Drax growls, muscling Quill out of the way and taking up the entire screen with one eye.

“You will what?” Gamora says, sounding bored. “Utterly fail to defeat me in armed combat for the three hundred and twenty seventh time?”

“I am Groot!” Groot says, excitedly, and Rocket chortles.

“Some things never change, huh?”

“Guys, guys, guys,” Quill says, shoving until all three of their faces are in the shot, crammed against each other and looking completely ridiculous. “Can we not have this argument again? Seriously? Just one day, one day without the-“

“Hey Rocket’s space friends!” Amy pipes up from the sofa, leaning over the back and staring, wide-eyed, at the rest of the Guardians.

“Hey,” Quill says, kinda awkwardly, the goof, “hey, Rocket’s Earth friend, were you drawing, last time I saw you, it was a good drawing-“

Rocket lets Quill and Amy talk, and focusses on the other two. He hasn’t spoken to them much, the last few months, and he kinda wishes they were here here, instead of on the other side of a screen here. Drax is looking at Amy with a soft, slightly terrified expression, and Gamora is grinning and shaking her head.

“It’s so nice to see Peter getting to speak with people his own age,” she says, innocently, and Rocket guffaws.

“Jeez, I’ve missed you, Greeny,” he says, and feels some kinda warm and fuzzy when she looks at him and smiles wide, the way she never did those first few months on the Milano, and – ugh, feelings, feelings, ugh, make it stop.

“And we have missed you, small furry one,” Drax says, who has apparently gotten a crash-course in deliteral while Rocket’s been gone, since he’s not asking when Rocket took a shot at Gamora, and how could he possibly have missed when her attacks are so predictable. “Quill has declared himself in charge of schemes in your absence.”

Rocket thinks about for a second. “And he hasn’t blown the ship up?”

“Not even a little,” Gamora says, her smile smaller but still present.

“Huh,” Rocket says. “He’s clearly doing it wrong, you should look into that.”

“I am Groot!”

“Hey, that was one time. And it worked out great.”

“I am Groot.”

“Eh, whatever.”

“Mr Rocket Mr Rocket Mr Rocket,” Amy says, “Peter hasn’t seen the film either, can he stay and watch it? Do you want to stay and watch it?” she asks, turning her attention to Drax and Gamora. Drax opens his mouth and closes it, but no sound comes out. Gamora jumps in. “We would be honoured,” she says, kinda super-intense, and he’d forgotten how bad they all were at normal people, sheesh, then she smiles, again, and she looks like a kid herself for a second. “What is it about?”

And Amy’s off again.

“Drax, man, you don’t have to-“ Quill says, clearly feeling the same vibe Rocket is, that seeing Amy’s too much like sticking a knife in a blaster burn, but Drax harumphs, and says, loudly, “Rocket’s friend, I wish to see this film of which you speak.” And Amy _beams_.

 

“Hey, Rocket, this Vinnie guy kinda remind me of you,” Quill says, in his best bullshitter’s voice.

“Shh,” Amy hisses.

Rocket snorts. “Like I’d rather open a flower shop than blow stuff up. I mean, have you met me?”

Quill stares around the apartment, pointedly.

“I am Groot!”

“Who asked you?”

“SHHH,” chorus Amy, Callie and Claire, all at once, and Abel wakes up with a snorting snore-grumble sound that’s as half-dead old human as they come, “wha?  S’just restin’ m’eyes, I’m listening,” he insists, even as he subsides back into sleep.

Rocket folds up a slice of pizza and stuffs it into his mouth, and watches everyone watching; Claire curled up on a beanbag with her hands in Callie’s hair, Callie on the floor with her head in Claire’s lap. Amy’s mum snoring quietly, head tipped back, with Amy tucked into a little rocking shape of rapt attention on her legs and Abel sprawled out beside her. Quill muttering in the background, every now and then interrupted by Gamora telling him to hush, or slapping him upside the head, and Drax loudly declaring the film’s great merits in the quietest moments. Groot is perched on the arm of the couch, and they stare at the screen, transfixed, as the band of misfit losers (oh, yeah, it’s parallel city in here tonight) make their way toward the giant crystal of unbelievable power (seriously, scratch the galaxy, the entire d’ast _multiverse_ is fucking with him), and learn valuable lessons along the way.

Terra is garbage, he thinks, cheerfully, and settles back to enjoy the show.

**Author's Note:**

> A few things: I used they/them pronouns for Groot because a) they're a tree, b) Rocket's insistence that Groot "Learn genders!", implying that Groot does not get genders and is in fact a baffled and confused agender like me c) they're a tree. 
> 
> This Claire is not Netflix's Defenders' Claire, because I forgot that there was another Claire to confuse people with.
> 
> I'm thinking about a sequel in which Groot plans a heist and gets all their Terran friends in trouble. Title: Don't Trust the Tree in Apartment 23.
> 
> You're welcome.


End file.
